Key points
- You may have been exposed to tuberculosis (TB) germs if you spent time near someone with TB disease.
- If you have been around someone who has active TB disease, contact your health care provider about getting tested, even if you do not feel sick.
Contact your health care provider if you have been exposed to TB
You may have been exposed to tuberculosis (TB) germs if you spent time near someone with active TB disease. TB germs can get into the air when a person with active TB disease of the lungs or throat coughs, speaks, or sings. These germs can stay in the air for several hours, depending on the environment. TB germs are more likely to spread in indoor areas or other places with poor air circulation (such as a closed vehicle) than in outdoor areas.
TB germs are not spread by:
- Shaking someone's hand
- Sharing food or drink
- Touching bed linens or toilet seats
- Sharing toothbrushes
- Kissing
If you think you have been exposed to someone with active TB disease, you should contact your health care provider or local or state health department about getting a TB blood test or TB skin test. Be sure to tell the health care provider when you spent time with the person who has active TB disease.
If you work in a health care setting, follow the procedure in your facility's infection control plan.
Only persons with active TB disease can spread TB to others
It is important to know that a person who is exposed to TB germs is not able to spread the germs to other people right away. Only persons with active TB disease can spread TB germs to others.
Before you would be able to spread TB to others, you would have to breathe in TB germs and become infected. TB germs can live in the body without making you sick. This is called inactive TB or latent TB infection. If you are infected with TB germs, and if your body cannot stop TB germs from growing, you develop active TB disease.
Some people who have inactive TB never develop TB disease. Other people with inactive TB develop active TB disease months or even years later when their immune system can no longer keep the TB germs from multiplying and growing in the body.
People with active TB disease feel sick. Symptoms of active TB disease depend on where the TB germs are growing in the body. Common symptoms of active TB disease include cough, pain in the chest, and coughing up blood or sputum (phlegm).
If you have active TB disease of the lungs or throat, you may need to take steps to prevent the spread of TB germs. This may include taking medicine to treat TB and wearing a mask or staying home from work or school for a period of time. People with active TB disease are most likely to spread it to people they spend time with every day. This includes family members, friends, and coworkers or schoolmates.
Contact investigations can help limit the spread of TB
If you have active TB disease, your health care worker may ask about your contacts (the people you spent time when you were able to spread TB germs). Your health care worker may conduct a contact investigation, also known as contact tracing.
Contact tracing is the process of identifying people who have recently been in contact with someone diagnosed with an infectious disease. Contact tracing is the process of quickly identifying, assessing, and managing people who have been exposed to a disease to prevent additional transmission.
Once a person tests positive for a disease, they will be asked to list the people they have been in contact with and the places they visited during the period in which they were contagious. The patient's contacts will be contacted by the health department or by contact tracers who will explain what precautions they need to take.
Contacts may include:
- People in your household,
- Family members,
- Friends,
- Coworkers,
- Classmates,
- Neighbors,
- People you socialize with
- People you spend time with at places of worship (church, synagogue or mosque), and
- Anyone else who spent time with you while you were able to spread TB germs.
You can help your family and friends stay healthy by sharing the names of people you have spent time with while you were sick with TB disease. Your health care worker will decide which of your contacts they need to speak with based on the information you provide. Your health care worker will let your contacts know that they have been exposed to TB and might need to be tested for TB.
The information you share with the health care worker is kept confidential.
It is important to quickly identify your TB contacts so they can be tested for TB and start treatment if needed.
You can help stop the spread of TB. By participating in a contact investigation, you are helping to protect people who may have been exposed to TB, prevent future TB outbreaks, and keep your community safe from TB.
A health care worker will ask you questions during a contact investigation
A health care worker may ask the following questions during a contact investigation to learn more about you and identify your contacts:
Symptoms
- What symptoms do you have?
- How long have you been coughing?
- When did you first start feeling sick?
Places you have been
- Where do you live?
- Where do you go to school, work, or church?
- Where do you socialize with others?
- Where did you spend time when you were feeling sick?
People you spent time with
- Who lives with you?
- Who are the people you've spent time with at home, work, school, church, social activities, etc. while you were feeling sick?
- Who do you see every day?
Other questions
- What's your daily routine?
- How do you get to work, school, church, or other places?
- What do you do in your free time?
What to expect if you have been named as a contact of someone with active TB disease
If you have been named as a contact of someone with active TB disease, a health care worker will call you on the phone or visit you in person to let you know you may have been exposed to TB germs. To maintain patient privacy and confidentiality, the health care worker will not tell you the name of the person with active TB disease.
You should contact your health care provider or local or state health department to get a TB blood test or TB skin test. If you have a positive reaction to the TB blood test or TB skin test, your doctor or nurse will do other tests to see if you have active TB disease.
If you have inactive TB, you can take medicine to prevent the development of active TB disease. If you have active TB disease, you will need to take medicine to treat the disease. It's very important that you take your medicine the right way, as your health care provider tells you.